


Kraken

by Tethys_resort



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Conservation, Disasters, Environmentalism, Fish, Gen, Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, The Valar, illegal fishermen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:08:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26160025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tethys_resort/pseuds/Tethys_resort
Summary: Protecting the ocean is a big job that requires strength, intelligence, supreme judgement and foresight.  But somebody has to do it.
Relationships: Ossë & Kraken
Comments: 18
Kudos: 12
Collections: Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang 2020





	Kraken

**Author's Note:**

> Set at the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument and based in the same world as the wonderful fanfic "At the Edge of Lasg'len". Artwork by AnnEllspethRaven.
> 
> Check the bottom of the work for links!
> 
> Trigger warnings: maritime disasters
> 
> As always, if you have questions please just ask.

Larry spotted the piece of coral first, lying broken and stranded on the ocean floor miles from its original home. The little squashy lifeforms that lived in their neatly organized cubbies had not noticed their new location. The creatures of the top half, still in open water, continued their slow flutter in the darkness. The half slowly sliding beneath the soft gray mud gasped and struggled as they were covered one by one. 

He nosed the coral a little more upright and blew water at the mud-covered beings before sliding back along his own length to stare at the trail of destruction. 

The trail was almost three body lengths wide and contained churned mud and dead and dying creatures. 

Larry swam back to the coral chunk and gripped it carefully in his jaws. This piece at least, he could save if he set it back upright amid the other branches. In a short while, only a few thousand years, the whole thing could grow together again. 

Self-appointed task completed, he swam up a little and followed the trail. 

It was intersected by another trail. And a bit further onward, a commercial packing freezer. He wondered if it had been lost accidentally: Miguel had explained they were expensive. But it smelled vaguely of burnt wiring and he wrinkled his barbels back from the thing as he nosed it over and over through the mud. Dead and broken, and then discarded to litter this pretty ocean floor parkland of coral hills and hot vent creatures. Fishermen used such things on their boats and would create such drag marks using nets. 

Miguel and Keith had celebrated when this area had become protected by the Laws of Men. 

So…illegal fishermen. 

Larry drifted up to the surface following the water disturbance until he found the fleet. He looped around and around examining the boats. Ulmo told him to watch over the bubbling hot springs, and guard the corals and other creatures that made this area their home. The boats were many times larger than him, he would need help. 

_Lord Ossë would know what to do_ , he thought. Lord Ossë was even close by.

*** 

Kraken heard the drumming of her feet against the paddle board first, and curious about the repetitive sound drifted in for a closer look. A female was sitting on the board, square in the middle, arms wrapped around legs, crying as her feet moved helplessly. 

He stopped to consider. This far out to sea, far enough that no Man would be able to see the shore, was an unusual place for a solitary human. So this appeared to be a lost human, doing yet another of those incomprehensible things that humans do. He wasn’t sure why creatures so ill adapted to the Seas insisted upon traveling them, but the Elves did as well he supposed. 

Best to tow the board, human and all, back to shore. Much further and the great northern current would catch the board and she would be headed away from the islands toward the northern ice fields. A bit far for a single human on a paddleboard. 

He gingerly reached out with a single tentacle and wrapped the very tip delicately around the back of the paddleboard. The material tasted sharp and bitter with the chemicals of its making, and indented slightly at the pressure, but held. He turned the board and began the long careful glide back to the closest beach. The rocky coastline would be faster, but he was certain the human wouldn’t like that. 

It turned out the human wasn’t happy about the ride either. As the board spun she glanced about rapidly, saw the tentacle and shrieked in a truly appalling manner. He shifted color involuntarily and almost let go in alarm.

Then she scrambled to her feet, grabbed the paddle where it lay in front of her and started hacking at the tentacle with war cries that would have done a Dwarrow chieftain proud. He tightened his grip as the board rocked under her feet but that started to crack the frail thing and he loosed his hold hastily, worried he would break it. 

The board rocked and with one last shriek the human flailed and fell off the board. 

Once in the water, instead of simply climbing out she continued to flail, screaming “Sharks! Sharks!”

Kraken felt through the vibrations in the water again and glanced about. No sharks, too bad. They made an excellent snack.

But the human was beginning to splutter and sink instead of calming down and climbing back on the board. Perhaps she could not? Concerned, the Kraken curled a tentacle under her, intending to set her back on the board’s surface. 

She shrieked louder when the tentacle wrapped around her middle. She grabbed the cord holding the paddle to one wrist and he winced when the paddle smacked him again. The human was far too weak to actually do any damage with the plastic thing, but it still smarted. He threw several more coils around her to pin down the flapping arms and legs and used another tentacle to grab the paddle and pull it out of her hand. 

Good, now he could set her on the board. 

And she bit him. Hard. That hurt more than the paddle and finally he surfaced entirely and thought at her, _“Hold still. You are delicate.”_

Which seemed to have the opposite effect when she shrieked more. And bit him again. 

He was still debating if he should try putting her on the paddle board again or just carry her back like this (with a paddle and a board dangling from a wrist and leg each) when Ossë appeared. 

“Mr. Squishy! How’s it going?” 

It was a measure of his distraction that he didn’t take the bait on the name. “Not well.”

The wave Maia swirled so he rose over the human caught in Kraken’s tentacles and inspected the screaming female. The poor creature’s eyes widened further and Kraken sighed in relief as she finally stopped screaming in favor of tiny gurgling noises. 

The tiny Maia that popped up in the water next to the female was a surprise. He gave her a very wide, sharp toothed grin and said, “Hi! I’m Larry, how are you today?” To Kraken’s surprise, the Maia was using actual speech, with sound. 

The human didn’t respond, but her eyes got impossibly wider as “Larry” continued chattering cheerfully. “It looks like you’re a bit far from land? Unless you meant to get out here? Or maybe you are traveling on the north current? That would be a bit far dressed like that without even a sandwich. Do you like sandwiches? Miguel makes these great fish sandwiches with the catch of the day, he says it’s the tartar sauce.” 

The human female had stopped struggling and was now dangling limp in Kraken’s tentacles, so he carefully loosened his grip a little.

Larry continued. “But those sandwiches are good! And I’ve never understood the point of tartar sauce, I’d take cocktail sauce any day. If you’re gonna have sauce it should be spicy, with extra horseradish.”

He flapped his wide front fins and flipped his long barbels back and forth before leaning forward a little farther. “Hey lady? You’re awfully quiet…. Do you not like fish sandwiches?” 

Kraken suspected whatever sandwiches were, they were not the reason for the female’s silence.

She blinked blankly and then said, “Have you ever had peanut butter?” 

Kraken set her carefully down on her board and then shuffled her until she was balanced properly to stay instead of suddenly tipping off again. 

“Peanut butter? That would be an abomination! Miguel makes that bread fresh every day!” Larry nodded vigorously before tilting his head a little. “I should take you to Keith and Miguel’s. They have the little fish market and diner out on the Point.”

“The one that had the lunch plate special during the surfing competition? Ossë heard it was very popular.”

Kraken was getting lost in this conversation, but Ossë was obviously following along. And at least the female was acting a little more normally, her head swiveling as she followed the conversation and rubbing her ears and eyes randomly.

She took a deep breath and said, “May I go to the Point Diner, please?”

***

Even for a being as old as Kraken, it had been a weird night. 

Ossë had known the way to the right pier and washed them in that direction. Larry had ridden the last wave directly onto the pier and rapidly bumped off down the splintery planks, using his fins for balance. His dark stripes and speckles blended into the night, and the long eel-like undulation was surprisingly efficient. 

Kraken had a minor and vague feeling of jealousy about that one: the tiny Maia had a skeleton, making him more mobile on land. His last attempt at doing anything on land had been distinctly ungainly and compressed. 

He awkwardly, and very gently placed the lost female on the dock with her paddle board and paddle. She had folded up into a silent heap, staring at the buildings visible in the darkness. 

Larry had returned quickly with a human trotting behind him. The male had stopped and stared with wide eyes at Kraken and Ossë and then bowed deeply. Kneeling, he had quickly coaxed up the female, who was now rather bizarrely giggling and crying at the same time with murmurs of “get a beer and some good food, we have dry clothes inside”. 

Once up, the male had bowed one more time before yelling up at Kraken and Ossë, “My Lord Kami, thank you for returning the woman to shore! Larry tells me you are in a hurry, but please come back sometime more convenient for you and we will be happy to fix dinner.” 

Now, reasonably out to sea far enough that his tentacles weren’t in danger of scraping rocks, Kraken thought to Ossë, _“So, what emergency does Larry bring?”_

Ossë smiled and splashed spray high into the air with a slap, “What makes you think there is an emergency? Maybe I just thought you and Larry both would be the perfect companions for a little storm surfing?”

Kraken turned darker with irritation. In the tiniest voice he had heard yet from the Maia, Larry said, “I am very sorry. I found Lord Ossë because I thought he could help. It’s all being broken and they are dying.”

He glanced over at the tiny Maia, gamely trying to keep pace with them, and rolled him into a tentacle. “You will have to explain this properly, from the beginning.” They would travel faster if they didn’t have to wait for him. Larry sighed and relaxed before beginning his story. 

***

They spotted the damage from the fleet first. Drag marks through ancient corals on the sea floor and a wide disturbance of injured and dying marine life. More litter drifted through the water column and had plunged into the mud in a scattered trail. 

Kraken reached out a tentacle and scooped together a floating knot of oily tasting rope and bundled it in on itself before carefully dropping it down to land in a spot cleared by a drag net. He can understand that all things must eat. But even in his worst days with Morgoth he hadn’t been quite so callously wasteful. If they broke the ocean, how would they eat from it? 

“Well, Ossë thinks this is depressing.” Ossë was washing a collection of plastic into a little clump. Why, Kraken wasn’t sure. It was too light and too small to stay in a clump. “Ossë is tempted to wash all the litter right back onto their boats.”

Ossë sent the waves into a tall flourish, spinning up into a minor whirlpool. Kraken jumped when Larry slithered out of the line of swirling water and into the protection of his tentacles, hovering there like he was in a kelp forest. He peered out at Ossë, “Can you stop them? I am too small.” He sounded wistful and Kraken wondered if he was always “too small”. 

“No storms.” Ossë sighed sadly. 

The last time Kraken had helped Ossë with a “small emergency” they had almost sunk a large whaling ship in Ossë’s enthusiasm. It had sailed away with an energy Kraken vaguely admired. And then, to make matters worse, the storm had spun off across the ocean and flooded the Marshall Islands. Kraken didn’t care much about the islands themselves, but the resulting wash of debris from the islands, and desperate people in small boats had been existentially horrifying. 

And Ulmo had come to survey the damage. Nothing had been said, but the looks had been telling. Ossë had taken the measure of manifesting in formal robes for the occasion, instead of the funny shorts he preferred. 

Kraken would deeply prefer to stay in Ulmo’s good graces. 

Ossë said, “Ossë remembers Kraken didn’t do much better with that oil platform.”

The ends of Kraken’s tentacles curled in at the memory. In trying to fix a tiny oil leak he had misjudged the tensile strength of a knob. And had been stuck with a tentacle wrapped around the broken pipe until Ossë had brought appropriate patching material. The crude oil had tasted awful and made his tentacles itch. 

Ulmo had appeared just as Kraken was wrapping the patching material, most of a rubber dingy, around and around the cracked piece. 

“Mr. Squishy-“

“Kraken.”

“Kraken, what do you want to do? Ossë thinks pulling up the mother, father and forty five step children of the big waves around the fishing boats sounds spiffy.”

“No force.” It had occurred to Kraken in retrospect that every time they tried to solve a problem involving humans with force, it hadn’t gone well. In fact, Larry’s big mouth had been much more useful with the lost human female. 

“Ossë isn’t following.” 

Kraken blew a bubble and began to explain. “In the past incidents we have taken it upon ourselves to resolve the situation with force. In retrospect, with evidence at hand, that was a fallacy that was better avoided and should be avoided in future affairs. That is not to say that it is wiser to remain unengaged or circumvent such clashes of habit and will, but it is highly reasonable to choose a more circumspect path to victory.”

There was silence and then Larry, speaking from his spot between Kraken’s tentacles said, “So we do something smarter than brute force?”

“Yes.”

Planning took a while, but Kraken was fairly certain they had a plan that would result in the illegal fishermen heading back to port and never returning to the sea reserve. It helped that Larry knew how boats and their equipment worked. 

They started in the late watches that night. 

Ossë called the fog thick and still over the water, and flattened the waves down to an unseasonable, almost silent chop before they approached the first boat. It was a little farther from the other two. He put on the guise of a giant pillar of water with deep glowing eyes and slipped out of the water silently to loom over the boat. 

The fishermen started screaming and the equipment ran free as they all scrambled about back and forth. Kraken wasn’t certain where they were running, but they all seemed to have a definite goal of circling the deck. 

While all eyes were focused up at the luminescent glowing eyes, Kraken slid a tentacle over the side and jammed a piece of net into the running motor used in pulling net out of the water. Larry had warned him it would tug inward quickly, and he was glad for the warning as the net was yanked out of his hold and into the machine. 

The machine made a whining noise and a horrible crunch before it died. 

One boat disabled, for the moment. 

They moved on to the next. 

The whole plan depended on the fishermen spooked and panicking so they needed to move quickly and finish before dawn. Kraken had noted millennia ago that all Mortals were less frightened and superstitious in the light of the Sun. In his pool before the gates he had caught more dwarves, more mortals period, on bright sunny days when horrors such as he couldn’t possibly exist. 

Ossë was the star character at the next boat too. He simply flipped smoothly out of the water and onto the deck in the form of a pale green elf with tangled black hair and electrically yellow boardies that Larry had laughed at and called “totally sweet”. (Kraken himself didn’t see the terror of shorts covered in disembodied eyeballs, but he was certain he was ill-equipped to judge.) He stood poised with his arms out and then started screaming with all the fury of howling winter blizzards from the Arctic. 

The response was panicky enough that one fisherman fell into the open hold in the center of the boat and he was answered by echoing shrieks. 

After a half a minute he simply allowed himself to dissolve into sea foam and ran out the holes in the gunnels and back into the water. 

Once back down he said, “Did it work, did he get them?” And laughed as Larry opened his mouth and they watched the control panel keys and a few other devices sink to the ocean floor. 

The last boat was already on the alert, probably informed by its fellows of their adventures in the dark. Kraken had figured this would happen, so it was now his turn. 

Larry and Ossë spotted for him as he came up from under the boat and rapidly threw tentacles across the deck, being careful to pin the main cabin doors closed. There was always the risk the fishermen were armed and enclosing them would at least help prevent the tiny painful holes that gunfire left. (Kraken was fairly certain Elves armed with spears or swords were much more dangerous than guns, but gunshots still stung.) 

With the boat firmly wrapped up (he was ignoring the fisherman on deck with a belt knife, the male was brave but wasn’t getting through even the outer layer of his skin) it was time for the next phase. 

He used one of his larger tentacles to very carefully rip the entire net boom off the boat. The bolts shrieked and cracked and he very carefully dropped it over the side before moving on to the big doors covering the fish hold. They came up with large pieces of deck planking. He flexed enough to break the front cabin windows and make the whole boat creak without actually breaking the craft itself. He didn’t want to actually sink the thing. 

Larry bobbed his way over the top of the boat in the darkness and called back by mind speech, _“Lord Kraken, can you reach that little white box? That’s the security camera.”_ There was a mental snort. _“Greedy guts, enough money for cameras and the latest fish radar and too greedy to care what they destroy.”_

Well, the camera device was easy enough: one twist of the very end of a tentacle and it was wrested off in a shattered pile of electronics and wire. 

Dawn rose over the illegal fishing operation. Fishing had completely stopped and the boats were drifting in an entirely weird, slow, circular current Ossë had devised. Ossë laughed all through the morning; the boats with still functioning engines were trying to navigate out of the current and only managing to make larger circles. The one lacking starter keys was simply spinning slowly in place. 

Kraken thought it was odd they had not retrieved the fishermen on the dead boat and were still attempting to repair their equipment and continue fishing when it would be reasonable to simply flee. Humans were oddly stubborn that way though. 

As the sun set, Ossë smoothed the deeper currents back into their usual slow northward progression but made sure the silent lack of wind and rising fog returned. 

Larry had spent the day slipping from boat to boat, unobtrusively watching and listening. Another night of what he called, “the twilight zone” would be necessary.

The first boat had managed to repair the broken motor, spending hours unwinding the net from the interior of the engine and replacing broken parts. The boat without keys had managed to wire the engine into running again. Just as well, if possible Kraken wanted the boats to depart with a minimum of damage. Not only so there would be less evidence of what had attacked them, but because he didn’t really want to accidentally drown the fishermen if they rendered the boats uninhabitable. 

The third boat could not fish without the boom, but Larry reported they were intending to pass catch from the other two boats to it. Apparently Kraken hadn’t damaged the hold enough. 

He came back chortling as the fog rose from the water in waves: the fishermen were apparently arguing over their radios. The fishermen of the first boat spent part of the afternoon carefully cutting the bottom out of a storage bin, and now with the rising fog perched it out on the end of the deck next to the net motor. They had announced they wished to depart for home, but the one in charge (Larry thought it was a male on boat two) demanded they continue. 

As night settled in and the moon rose above the low fog, the fishermen continued. 

Kraken could tell the fishermen weren’t happy, they kept pausing in their work to stare out across the water. The ones in charge kept yelling as equipment was dropped and a series of minor accidents tangled nets and rope. Very little progress was being made.

Watching the fishermen from the second boat dismantle some part of the main cabin console (they were clearly visible through the front window) Ossë commented, “Ossë thinks it would be easy to end this night’s fishing and they would blame all the accidents on each other.” He grinned, “Or, a great wave would still be loads of fun!”

“No waves.”

“Oh, come on Mr. Squishy! They are almost ready to run and it could be the last push.”

_“Kraken.”_ Kraken boomed his name out mentally and Larry and Ossë winced. He continued quieter, “And no waves.”

Ossë stirred the water restlessly and the fishing boats all drifted sideways. “The water is perfect for hurricanes. If I spun up five or six, do you think I could make them go in patterns?” Kraken was certain that would be a terrible mistake, but Ossë sounded wistful rather than determined to enact the project. 

Larry said, “Lord Ossë, you like hurricanes?” He was back in his habitual position between Kraken’s tentacles like the appendages were a kelp forest. 

“Of course.” Ossë swirled a little faster. “They are great fun to watch: drunk whales trying to do circle dances wouldn’t be half as fun.”

Kraken attempted to imagine that one and promptly gave up the attempt. 

“Um, Lord Ossë? Lord Kraken? Are they supposed to do that?” Larry sounded both fascinated and worried. 

Kraken looked over just in time to see the boat they had stolen the keys from (and who had since wired it to work again somehow) zip forward with a gusto that had the fishermen in the main cabin screaming with alarm. 

There was an almost quiet pop as the boat plowed directly into the fishing boat with the missing net boom and damaged deck. The tiny sound didn’t match the way the side crumpled. 

As Kraken, Ossë and Larry stared in horrified awe, the fishermen on the mangled boat ran out onto the deck, unloaded a big orange box and threw it over the side. With a much larger whoosh than the collision, it inflated into a raft and the fishermen jumped down onto it. The fishing boat listed rapidly over, and then began a slow spinning descent to the ocean floor. The fishermen in the raft sat silently and watched it go. 

“Ossë didn’t do that.” Kraken couldn’t tell if it was a statement of fact or a question. 

Larry and Kraken looked at Ossë. And he swished in an aimless bob of water. “They were just following the current in circles, it wasn’t Ossë’s fault they were in front of the other boat?” 

Kraken reflected that he could understand. He also had the sinking feeling that Ulmo was about to appear and stare at them. Again. Or maybe not as it was only one boat? So far?

He shook his tentacles out and stared at the second boat. Its front end was badly damaged but it was still somewhat floating. More ominously, smoke was starting to leak out ruptures in the deck plates. The crew of this fishing boat were a little less coordinated, they darted out of various hatches and doorways, converging on the deck to manhandle the same big orange box toward the water. 

The fire spread fast. By the time they were jumping into the little orange raft the entire cabin was in flames. The last fisherman climbed out of a door next to the fish hold and leaped into the water, swimming to the raft.

The fire was bright orange, a beacon that drowned out the moon and stars. 

Kraken’s tentacles curled slightly in remembered pain and his skin paled out. He remembered trying to rescue a burning submarine, one of many that died during a time of war. Something had gone wrong inside the submerged craft and the sound of rending metal and screaming inside the hull had attracted his attention. As he had swum closer it had begun to break and sink. He had grappled with it, trying to bring it to the surface so the humans could escape but it had exploded in his tentacles. 

It had at least ended the screaming although even the memories of fire and wreckage floating toward the ocean floor made him go blotchy. The burns had ached for months. They hadn’t been bad, but burns were not something with which a cephalopod was well adapted to cope. 

As he paused the humans on the little raft next to the burning boat began to scream, one stood to lean and pound on the side of the boat.

Ossë said, “Kraken, do you hear it?”

Kraken listened carefully, and below the crackle and shriek of fire, screaming metal, and the rush and gurgle of water was someone pounding. There was still a human inside the boat. 

“Ossë could just douse the whole thing?” Ossë sounded uncertain.

“No.” The best case with more water would be to sink the boat, human and all faster. And just because they are horrible humans doesn’t mean they should die. If so, Ulmo would have arranged to have first Ossë and then later Kraken himself pitched into the Void after Morgoth instead of charging them both with duties of protection and care.

Kraken sucked up water, pulling his tentacles toward him before gliding forward and reaching out to the fishing boat. He said, “Larry, grab the human when he appears.”

Larry swam around so he was down underneath the boat, in danger of being hit by debris but in a good position to watch. 

Kraken reached out, the fire was spreading and it was better to do this fast. He grabbed the boat and with a sharp twist and yank pulled the thing into a debris field. The surge of water pushed the raft into safety.

Ossë immediately hit it with a jet of water, pushing the debris up toward the surface and wider apart. 

As pieces rotated and spun in the dark water, Larry yelled, “There!” and dove. He came back up with a human in his jaws. He shot toward the surface and flung the male into the tiny raft before diving again in one smooth motion. 

Kraken felt englobed in silence. The third boat was approaching at speed with all its searchlights on and dancing over the waves. The bubble popped and sound rushed in as the human gasped and with the assistance of his companions began to throw up. 

They watched, just outside the reach of the lights, as the two life rafts were taken on board. The humans hugged each other and pounded on the back of the one who had almost drowned. Soon, they went inside and the fishing boat turned away from where they had been fishing. 

“Heading home,” Ossë said. 

Kraken could feel another motor vibrating the water in the distance. He surfaced enough to look at it on the horizon as it sailed toward the fishing boat. Larry coughed out a laugh and said, “The Coast Guard. I guess boats on fire are a big enough disturbance to come look.”

***

Clean up had been a non-issue when he was a pawn of Morgoth. Clean-up is time consuming and occasionally boring but Kraken is pretty certain it is part and parcel of NOT being a minion of the personification of chaos. 

At least with three of them he had company and it was going faster. 

After a certain amount of discussion they decided Ossë could wash the mud and tracks and debris away while Kraken collected and set the coral back into a semblance of order. It wasn’t perfect, but it would work. 

Now if only he could convince Ossë that whirlpools weren’t a good method of gathering fishing debris. The giant swirls of water were pulling lost nets and rope into long strings that balled themselves up into compact lumps. But Kraken had been forced to untangle Larry twice so far when he had gotten a little too close. 

Larry kept up a long happy string of mind speech as he rushed about nudging crabs and clams around the hot vents and poking at the corals. Apparently he was going to go and check in with Miguel and Keith when he was satisfied with repairs. And have a sandwich with a beer. And sit and watch something called the World Cup with them.

It sounded weird, but friendly. And Larry was looking forward to it. 

Ossë listened for a little while and then said, “Ossë is heading south, it is almost surf season.” Then, he spun a wave up into a huge glistening pipeline he sent washing across the ocean. “No one objects when I make waves that scream like mating flying fish on a cold night.”

Kraken carefully didn’t think about it until Ossë had zipped away with his usual gusto and he had left Larry tenderly rearranging the rocks of a little cove next to a hot springs vent gushing black mineral-laden water. 

Conclave wasn’t for a while yet and he had just completed his previous task before the female on the paddleboard. He had no place to be. Relaxing he stretched out his tentacles as far as they would go, waggling the tips in a rather undignified manner. It felt great and he tasted the water currents as he drifted. 

Maybe he would go south and east a little farther and visit those volcanoes again? The littlest one, still underwater, was always pleasantly hypnotic to observe as hot lava cracked and broke through the water chilled layer on the outside. 

Peace is always a good thing. 

**Author's Note:**

> "At the Edge of Lasg'len": https://archiveofourown.org/works/7899862/chapters/18045334
> 
> Kraken in all his destructive glory: https://www.deviantart.com/annellspethraven/art/Kraken-853350923


End file.
